Category: NEXT: An Empowerment Series

May Day reminds me of how I’ve never been good the anonymous acts of kindness.  I do love to help. With three younger siblings there was always a child in need of shoe tied or a nose wiped.  When I was old enough to babysit for other families, I delighted in sweeping the floors and doing the dishes to please the returning parents. By junior high, volunteering was vital in my life.  First as a lawyer, now as an executive coach, helping is my jam. An enneagram assessment affirms my identity as a Number Two—The Considerate Helper. Being kind is easy.  Being anonymous not so much for me.  Unlike countless friends and family I could name (naming them would rob them of their incognito intention), I feel compelled to tell someone else about good things I’ve done. It’s quite unattractive.  I

The speed with which it lodged in my throat took me by surprise. What had begun with the sharing of a lighthearted meme ended with me feeling like I might cry over two tiny words from Brian. Brothers can do that to you.  I grew up with five brothers, three older, two younger. I was six years old when my sixth brother, Howard, joined the family, marrying my older sister Diane.  All save one always lived within a half hour drive of me.  I lost my brother Tim at 35 and my brother-in-law Howard after 46 years of marriage to my sis.   When Kevin and I started dating, I

Anthony Fauci and I go way back. His name became a household word to me not from his recent appearances as the expert at the daily briefings of the White House Corona Virus. We go back decades.    In the 1980s my brother Tim and his partner John bought a beautiful a two-story Victorian home in Atlanta. Together they ran a small café on Peach Street called Neon Peach. It was the start of the AIDS epidemic, and John was struck with the mysterious virus.  AIDS was a full-blown crisis when the first clinical trials for a vaccine started in 1987 at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland began in 1987.  With no cure available, John agreed to participate. Anthony Fauci, who

“It’s not the same.” The Passover Seder. The Easter egg hunt. The annual spring garden tour. Missing is the uncle sitting beside us at the table, the pairs of little legs racing for the same egg hidden in the dewy grass, sharing the sweet smell of spring’s first hyacinth bloom. Virtual can be beautiful. And it’s not the same. My heart is sore from the small stabs of sorrows from the phrase I utter at every turn.  Meeting with teammates: Not the same. Graduation celebration: Not the same. Fundraisers for my favorite causes: Not the same. Despite gratitude that I

It was January 21 when I made my first joke about the Covid-19.  A follower of global news, so I’d heard the news from overseas.  My buddy Tom’s go-to drink is a bottle of Corona with lime. I texted him: Reports of a deadly coronavirus from China. Be careful out there. I ended it with a beer emoji. For years Tom and I shared a friendship with Mary, a friendship with Mary, a tiny woman in her 80s who lived alone.  Tom was her surrogate son of sorts. It was vodka for Mary, cabernet for me, and Corona for Tom

An unspoken judgment wafted through the rear corridors of my mind every time I heard the word. People kept talking about seeking “distractions”. Meanwhile, I tried to avoid them. I’ve long seen distractions as something that derail me from my path. The phone call that turns the broiling garlic bread to black char. The rabbit hole of the web as I procrastinate starting this week’s blog. The half package of Girl Scout Thin Mints that takes me away from a good cry. Distractions can interfere with our goals, the precious present moment, and from what we don’t want to see.

I lifted the dirt filled tray out from beneath the radiator in the kitchen. I pulled back the plastic wrap that had turned it into a mini greenhouse. I gasped. The salvia had sprouted.  It was just days after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic when the tiny threads of green popped out.   A week earlier, when the country was commencing its collapse under coronavirus, I’d sought solace in purchasing potting soil instead of toilet paper.  Each morning I say hello to my seedlings. I eagerly examine them.  I gently water them from the cheerful can that once held Tropical Cherry Sparkling Water.   Connecting with nature. Focusing on what is in front of me. Doing what I can.  Each small act that

“You need a haircut,” he said, looking me straight in the eye. I felt the sting. I looked in the mirror then decided not to argue with a five-year-old.  He went on. “You look like a lion.” Feeling bad about my hair has been a part of my history since childhood. More than one home haircut left my bangs chopped to the top of my forehead. In first grade a big section of the right side of my head was shaved for a surgery. One well-intended adult said “Well, you’re still a nice girl,” and I knew the rest of

“You can’t say no to Virginia,” my fellow volunteer smiled, shaking her head. Rows of us lined up at desks, a phone on one hand, a pen in the other, marking off names on our respective call lists. We made requests to those we phoned on behalf of Virginia’s many social justice passion projects. All because Virginia asked. Virginia was close to my mother’s age, but she appeared ageless to me with her sparkling eyes and  ever-present smile.  Her long straight hair that fell to the middle of her back was already beginning to gray when we first met decades

As I munched my extra buttery fun size bag of popcorn, I knew that coming alone was right.  Do not depress your friends, I’d decided. Each year I see the Oscar nominated short documentary films. While the topics are compelling, those who enjoy movies for escape and entertainment might not put down money to see such sorrow on the big screen. I watched: The body of the once lively little refugee now lying in diapers, tube fed in their bed in a coma of hopelessness. Like hundreds of other children, they’ve succumbed to a condition known as “resignation syndrome” in